Join the THRIVE Team!
Help families move from barely surviving to thriving when you join the special ECHO Thrive Team. Your monthly gift ensures life-changing trainings and resources are available. For as little as $10 a month, you can make a lasting difference. Monthly giving is a convenient way to give and show you care – with powerful results.
Giving Options
Gift Catalog
ECHO’s Online Gift Catalog gives you the opportunity to donate in honor of a loved one. Your hard-earned money will reduce hunger and improve lives worldwide and your recipient will have the heartwarming feeling of knowing that a gift was made in their name!
Behind the Scenes at an East Africa Workshop
Read MoreWhen agricultural lands are depleted or overgrazed, incomes dwindle and
Central America & Caribbean
According the the FAO, the Central America and the Caribbean region has the highest average level of income inequality in the world (FAO-2023,18). ECHO was originally founded to support small-scale farmers in the Caribbean, and expanding our impact throughout this region remains a central focus of our current strategic plan.
Why Central America & Caribbean?
Despite vibrant tourism and export economies, much of Central America and the Caribbean remains vulnerable to poverty. Countless families rely on small-scale farming, yet unpredictable weather patterns—from hurricanes to prolonged droughts—often destroy crops and livelihoods. As a result, hunger and malnutrition persist across the region.
Additionally, degraded soils and limited access to agricultural resources have heightened food insecurity. When natural disasters strike, rural communities are often the hardest hit, lacking the means to adapt and recover. Sustainable, long-term solutions to improve crop yields and build resilience are urgently needed.
By establishing our Impact Center in this region, we are equipping smallholder farmers with practical, climate-smart techniques that nurture both the land and the people who depend on it. Through hands-on trainings and innovative approaches, we aim to empower families to break the cycle of poverty and cultivate a stronger future for their communities.
Meet Katalina Landeata
Director, ECHO Central America & Caribbean
Katalina holds a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sciences and a Master’s degree in Fundamentals and Practices of Sustainability from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland).
She has worked in Bolivia, Colombia, and Angola, focusing on research, environmental education, and the promotion of sustainable agri-food practices with local institutions and peasant communities.
Between 2019 and 2021, she implemented a Participatory Action Research project to strengthen agroecological production and commercialization in a rural municipality in the mesothermal valleys of Bolivia. In 2021, she visited farmer associations in the municipality of Apia in Colombia to systematize their good agricultural, commercial, and organizational practices to be shared with associations in gestation in Caribbean countries. Between 2022 and 2024, she was a consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Angola, in charge of two missions to strengthen the resilience of agro-pastoral communities through the promotion of agroecology and ecosystem conservation. In parallel, since 2019, together with her family, she implemented an agroecological farm in Bolivia as a model for teaching and raising awareness among the inhabitants of the Municipality of Vallegrande.
